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Mark’s not normally one for skinship.
Donghyuck knows this, knows this very well. Knows it like the back of his hand and the palm of Mark’s.
And yet, when it comes down to it, he can't stop himself from imprinting upon his friend in any way he can while said friend attempts to fend him off half-heartedly.
When Jaemin asks why, he grins and calls Mark cute like he always does, mischief simmering under his skin. When Jisung and Chenle ask why, he recalls how Mark looks constipated when Donghyuck hugs him, face scrunched up in obvious distaste. He pretends that it doesn’t hurt, pretends that torturing his friend with hugs and kisses he doesn’t want is what he’s after. When Renjun asks him why, all he gives in response is a wry smile and a shrug of his shoulders.
When Jeno asks him why, he wonders.
Wonders if it’s the way Mark melts into him when it’s 2 AM and they’re having a movie marathon, popcorn and sweets long forgotten, Mark leaning against his side, tucked in like he’s always been there, like he’s always belonged there. Wonders if it’s the shy splattering of pink that remains on Mark’s cheeks when he catches him off guard with his affection, pressing a quick kiss to his temple. Wonders if it’s in the way that Mark reciprocates, gentle and soft with everything but his heart, fingers carding through Donghyuck’s hair absentmindedly as Donghyuck pretends to doze, head firmly on Mark’s lap.
He doesn’t answer Jeno; he doesn’t have to—Jeno already knows.
Not that it helps much. If anything, Jeno’s looks of sympathy make the sinking in his stomach worse. Without the glances, Donghyuck could just pretend that Mark shoving his face away when it gets too close is all in good fun, just a joke. A huge joke where Mark’s as in love with him as he is but doesn’t want to say it, doesn’t want to ruin what they have. Mark’s this way because he’s afraid he’ll be tempted—but of course, that’s all projection. The only joke here is Donghyuck, made painfully clear by his pathetic, wobbly laughs when Mark slips out of his hug, scoffing at Donghyuck as if he were affronted by the very thought.
If anything, he’s the one that’s tempted when it’s a Friday night and he’s sleeping over at Mark’s, eyes glancing down at his lips as they softly curl, moonlight streaming through the window because even though they played rock paper scissors twice, they’re both too lazy to actually get up out of bed and draw the blinds. And anyways, there’s something magical about the way it illuminates his face, there’s something about it that makes Mark seem so lovely, so soft, so dear to him, so pretty that he finds himself leaning into him instinctually, Mark’s brown eyes forgiving, watching Donghyuck come closer with no malice or clear intent.
Instead of kissing him like he wants to, like he feels Mark wants him to, Donghyuck pushes his delusions aside and presses his lips to his forehead instead, feeling the smooth skin under his lips wrinkle—in confusion perhaps, or distaste.
He allows himself a moment, a moment of pretending that he’ll lean back and confess, voice gentle and perfect for the atmosphere, an “I love you” slipping off of the tip of his tongue like silk and strawberries.
And then the moments over, and he pulls back, face burning, Mark’s hands gently clutched onto the bottom of his shirt. The material rumples under his inexperienced hands.
“Sorry,” he croaks, voice too loud, too brazen, too much for the stillness in Mark’s room. He doesn’t know why he apologizes but it slips off of his tongue like barbed wire and chestnuts fresh off the tree as he tries to reign in his facial expression, edges of his mouth moving upwards in something that he hopes isn’t a grimace. This isn’t like him, not at all. Apologies were for grave sins, not this.
The Mark in his head rolls his eyes at Donghyuck, turning his back on him in order to get some sleep. The Mark in his head snorts playfully at him, reminding him that “I’m your hyung, remember?” as Donghyuck sticks out his tongue. The Mark in his head leans up, hands grabbing the front of his shirt tighter and presses their lips together, soft yet not, desperate yet slow, sighing into Donghyuck’s mouth with a smile, tasting like vanilla and sugar and the strawberry toothpaste they shared because Donghyuck had forgotten his at home.
The real Mark does none of those things.
The real Mark stares at him, eyes big and mouth small, corners downturned just a little. He’s quiet, eyes flicking all over Donghyuck’s face, as if searching for something.
If it’s a “no homo,” Donghyuck isn’t sure that that’s something he can give right now.
“Why?” Mark finally breaks the silence, voice smooth whereas Donghyuck’s wasn’t, in direct contrast to the usual. He continues to stare, mouth slack, eyebrows raised a little.
It’s a really cute look, and Donghyuck’s heart hammers in his chest. “Why what?” He parrots.
“Why are you apologizing?”
Donghyuck isn’t flustered, he swears he's not, but he looks away from Mark’s inquiring gaze anyways, glancing at the wall behind him. Because well, it’s Mark’s fault really, for pulling him into bed like he did, for smiling as cutely as he did and for snuggling into his pillow as if it were a substitute for another body. Mark being in a cuddly mood isn’t that uncommon, especially when they’re far away from prying eyes and adult supervision, but it’s rare that he wanted to be crowded against the wall like he was tonight, while Donghyuck took up space on the edge of the bed. Usually, Mark would insist Donghyuck get in bed first, and he’d follow, keeping a respectful distance. They’d wake up cuddling anyways, Donghyuck’s head tucked under his chin, legs entwined and hands squished between their chests.
Mark calls him clingy, and Donghyuck agrees.
He doesn’t tell Mark that it’s actually him that makes the first move, turning over and grabbing at Donghyuck in his sleep, hands gentle and mostly useless because they just flop around at him while Mark mutters something about how it’s cold. Donghyuck’s body temperature is naturally a bit warmer than Mark’s, whose hands and toes are perpetually freezing, and he uses that to his advantage, slipping ice cold fingers under Donghyuck’s shirt to warm them on his waist, ignorant to the shivers that run down Donghyuck’s spine, caused by much more than just the cold.
He doesn’t tell Mark because he might stop, and that’s the last thing he wants.
He enjoys those moments too much, and when he goes to bed the next night in his own home, his shirt faintly smelling of Mark’s house and body wash, he falls asleep with a small grin on his face. The Mark in his head always wraps his cold phantom limbs around Donghyuck, sapping his warmth, but really, he doesn’t mind, not at all.
“Hyuck?” Mark interrupts his thoughts. His eyes flicker back to his immediately, and they’re still as wide and pretty. He’s a bit confused, Donghyuck can see it in the set of his brow, and he has to physically restrain himself from kissing the space between his dumb (cute) seagull brows. Instead, he places a hand on one of Mark’s, still grasping at his shirt tightly.
Donghyuck hums in acknowledgement.
“Why did you kiss me?”
He blinks.
“Because you’re cute, hyung.” The half-lie slips out of his mouth easily.
Mark blinks back at him, mouth going a bit slack. It’s too much for Donghyuck, whose lips curl into an easy grin at the reddening of his cheeks. Mark’s got his eyebrows furrowed again, staring hard at him, his most determined look—Donghyuck wonders why he’s concentrating on his face to that extent, but his questions are answered when Mark leans forward, hands coming up to cup Donghyuck’s cheeks. Mark’s going to squeeze his face till he takes his words back, he already knows the drill.
His eyes close on instinct but they flutter open when instead of feeling his face temporarily being mutilated, he feels something soft on his nose, a small pressure that’s gone almost as fast as it came.
And when Mark lays back down on his back, hands out of Donghyuck’s space, Donghyuck sputters.
“What?! Why—“
Mark raises his eyebrows in amusement, seemingly pleased at gaining the upper hand. “Because you’re cute, Donghyuck-ah.” Donghyuck just stares, mouth hanging slightly open, cheeks burning, as Mark shoots him a sheepish smile and turns back over with a “good night.”
He burns holes in Mark’s back, eyes round and mouth closed. When Mark’s breathing finally evens out, he’s still wide awake, staring at the smooth skin on the back of his neck, trying to figure out how the Mark in his head found his way into reality.
After a few more minutes of laying there, still halfway in shock, he reaches into his bag next to the bed and texts Jeno that his best friend has officially lost it.
Two weeks later, he’s sitting with Jeno on Jaemin’s couch, mourning the loss of Mark’s sanity.
Technically, Donghyuck’s just complaining while Jeno kindly listens to him, offering him small bits of advice that Donghyuck would never ever in a million years take because they all somehow lead to him confessing to his best friend like some anime protagonist with too little backstory besides ‘we’re childhood friends and fated to be together!’ and too much time for romance.
Jaemin and Renjun are cuddling on the armchair, Renjun half in Jaemin’s lap (which would be gross if Donghyuck himself wasn’t tempted to walk over to where Mark was getting his ass beat by the two youngest and plop himself down in his lap). Every once in a while, Renjun lets out a laugh to accompany Chenle’s joy-screaming because he somehow keeps throwing bananas right in front of Mark’s kart in the game they’re playing. It’s a comforting atmosphere.
Which is why, when Donghyuck loudly says “hell no” to Jeno’s ‘advice’, Jaemin’s interest is piqued, and he gently shifts Renjun off his lap in order to stalk over and settle himself right behind Jeno, arms circling around his waist, chin propped up over his shoulder. Jeno’s face blooms into a smile at his boyfriend’s touch, leaning into it as it were natural. Donghyuck scrunches his nose in fake disgust.
“And what are you two handsome men doing?”
Donghyuck rolls his eyes as Jeno turns to kiss Jaemin’s temple.
“We’re just talking about Hyuckie’s—“ He reaches out and pinches Jeno’s calf. “Ow! His uh,” Jeno glances at Donghyuck’s keep your damn mouth shut Lee Jeno or God knows I will end you expression written all over his face. “Do—g?”
Jaemin furrows his brows in confusion as Donghyuck snorts.
“Kinda mean to call Mark-hyung a dog!” Jisung calls over his shoulder as he comes in first, the game blasting celebratory music as Chenle and Mark battle by throwing shells at each other, the race seemingly forgotten.
“What? Who—dammit Chenle get that red shell out of here—Who said that?!”
“Jeno,” The rest of them intone as Jeno splutters, looking over at Donghyuck in alarm while Jaemin laughs gleefully into his shoulder.
“Woof woof, hyung!” Chenle taunts before getting elbowed in the side, toppling over like a feather in the wind. “Aah! Man down! Man down!”
Jaemin smiles at the sight of Jisung attempting to beat up Mark in order to avenge Chenle as Mark struggles to keep playing before seeming to tune them out, facing Donghyuck again. “So? What about him?”
Donghyuck shrugs, attention suddenly focused on the leather of the couch beneath him. He’s sitting on some cow’s skin right now. That’s kinda weird, he muses to himself. What if (when he died) the funeral home skinned him and stretched it out over a—okay, woah, that brought on some unfortunate mental imagery and Donghyuck grimaces, attempting to backtrack.
“Hyuck,” Jeno (thankfully) interrupts his thoughts. “Can I…?”
Jaemin’s the best at keeping secrets right next to Jeno—whereas Jeno wouldn’t tell a soul, Jaemin would absolutely blab everything to Jeno because he keeps secrets so well. And well, Jeno already knows, so it’s not like they’ll do much more damage.
Donghyuck nods, and watches Jaemin’s face change from interest to delight from whatever Jeno is whispering in his ear.
When he’s finished, Jaemin’s eyes whip towards Donghyuck at a frightening speed, causing him to jump a little, hands picking at spare thread in his socks.
“Hyuckie! This is wonderful! He’s finally—”
Donghyuck’s eyes open wide in warning, staring first at Jaemin and then at Mark’s back, shifting between them a couple times until Jaemin shuts his mouth, choosing to lean in and whisper instead.
“He’s finally being honest!”
Donghyuck furrows his brow. “What? That’s not the problem here—“
“What problem?” Mark chimes in, now fully turned away from the TV as it flashes “Last Place” at him. “Is something up?”
“Nah, there’s no problem, don’t worry about it.” Donghyuck responds, getting up from his spot, boldly ignoring Jaemin’s protests. He kicks Chenle and Jisung away with his foot, nudging them towards the armchair where Renjun was sitting, currently on his phone, encouraging them to take their odd wrestling-flirtation elsewhere. Instead, he takes Chenle’s spot and controller, nudging Mark with his shoulder. He can feel Jaemin burning holes in his back and discreetly flips him off behind his back, hearing Jeno exhale loudly through his nose in amusement.
Mark shoots him a small grin. “Rematch?”
“You already know I’m going to slaughter you, hyung.”
And even though he shakes his head in amused disbelief, Mark sets up the game again, this time for two players. He doesn’t ask which courses Donghyuck wants to play (he already knows—Dry Dry Desert, Daisy Cruiser, Rainbow Road, and DK Jungle), doesn’t even sweat it when Donghyuck chooses Daisy, instead changing his course from where he was heading (over to Toad) to choose Peach instead. It’s a sort of unwritten, unspoken, unacknowledged rule between them. If Donghyuck chose Toad, Mark would choose Toadette. If Donghyuck chose Birdo, Mark would be right there with his green-ass Yoshi. And if Donghyuck chose Donkey Kong, Mark would complain that he didn’t want to be Diddy Kong, whining in that insufferable tone only he knew how to do, forcing Donghyuck to be Diddy Kong instead.
(Donghyuck doesn’t particularly care either way, but it’s funny to hear his friend go off on a seven-minute spiel about how Diddy Kong is just a cucked Donkey Kong. It gets even funnier when Chenle asks what ‘cucked’ means, and Mark has to scramble for some bullshit answer that wouldn’t ruin the 16-year-old’s innocence.)
When Mark partners them on the same kart Donghyuck raises his eyebrows a bit, turning towards him with a questioning look.
“M’not gonna get my ass beaten by my dongsaengs twice in a row.” Mark leans in and murmurs, breath hitting the shell of Donghyuck’s ear and he’s close, too close, but Donghyuck doesn’t mind the violent shiver that runs down his spine.
He snorts in lieu of an actual answer.
Mark isn’t good at video games—he’s never been particularly good with technology in general, but when it came to video games his lack of hand-eye coordination really had an opportunity to shine. He wasn’t just bad at driving games. He was atrocious. Watching him struggle to drift when he can barely avoid veering off of dangerous cliffs and falls is as frustrating as it is amusing, so on some level, Donghyuck’s glad that he’s leaving the steering to people (well, just him) that can actually use the controller without looking down at it every few seconds. Mark—was a curious player. He’s always preferred the backseat, the helping role. He liked the small responsibility of throwing bananas and shells at their opponents, high-fiving his driver when he manages to get a good hit in.
It’s peculiar, because his real-life preferences stood in direct contrast to this—he’s social and active and wonderful at sports. He’s the class vice president and is always trying to assume more roles of leadership in their school—he’s the secretary of SGA, works with a few volunteering organizations in order to help wherever he could.
He’s an overachiever, through and through. Which is why it’s odd that he loses his competitive streak when it comes to playing with Donghyuck.
He even lets Donghyuck have the orange controller without a fuss nowadays. (Nowadays because Donghyuck clearly remembers them fist fighting over whose turn it was to use the ‘lucky’ controller when they were quite a few seasons younger.) Donghyuck only had one orange gamecube controller, after all, and it made him feel special when he used it. Mark stopped attempting to lay claim on said controller after he turned 13, deciding that he was too old to bicker and fight with his best friend over something as silly as this. He was never too old to play with Donghyuck though, and this remained a common theme throughout their friendship.
Mark still came over to his house after school sometimes, just so they could hook up Donghyuck’s old GameCube (because fuck using their Wii) and play the games of their childhood until they’re too tired to go on anymore, and collapse in a pile of limbs, flopping all over each other.
Playing with Mark is lax as usual, and Jaemin only makes one snide comment about how compatible and well matched they are, which both of them ignore in favor of basking in their grand prix win. And before he knows it, he’s falling asleep, head propped up on Mark’s shoulder, orange GameCube controller gently slipping out of his grasp to hit the floor. Mark’s been on his phone for the past 10 minutes as Donghyuck leaned on his shoulder, trying to unsuccessfully watch him scroll through twitter, his eyes closing every few seconds against their will. It’s warm, comfortable, the way that Mark has his head leaning on his, phone tilted towards Donghyuck slightly so he could see as well.
Donghyuck murmurs a “goodnight” before finally letting his consciousness go, not hearing Mark’s response: a small smile and a “sleep tight.”
When he wakes up again, he’s tucked into bed—one of Jaemin’s beds, in the guest room, to be more precise. He wonders briefly who brought him here, but doesn’t give it too much thought—he already somewhat knows what went down because he was jostled awake a little, the sound of bickering registering before he sank back under—right down to Mark being too stubborn to accept help with moving Donghyuck’s heavy, passed out body to the guest room upstairs.
Jeno probably helped anyway, just because he was a kind soul that didn’t want to see Donghyuck die at the hands of his own best friend.
The room is dark, serene, quiet. The blinds are down, oddly enough. Mark was always too lazy to do that. There’s the small ticking of the clock to his right-hand side, slow breathing on his left. He was cold.
That was odd, too.
Usually Mark would be all over him by now, limbs hugging him so tightly he can barely adjust himself in his grip. Usually his frigid hands would’ve already found their way to his waist or stomach—or really wherever he could reach, because all parts of Donghyuck were warm. He sniffs in offense. Well, at least he could enjoy not being suffocated and crowded by his best friend.
He closes his eyes, willing himself to go back to sleep.
After a couple minutes of just laying there, cold and cranky (for no reason, of course, it must’ve just been a mood swing), Donghyuck finds himself irritated at Mark. Was he not going to turn over and grab at him like he was a claw machine at an arcade? After years of doing exactly that, it’s kind of unfair to just stop tonight. He could at least have given Donghyuck a heads up. A ‘Hey, y’know how I always cuddle you? Yeah, I’m not doing that tonight’ would’ve been just fine. But, no, of course he didn’t, and now Donghyuck has to suffer in silence.
He scrunches his face in displeasure.
The ten minutes that proceed to pass are almost unbearably long. It’s annoying, the way that Mark’s just sleeping next to him, completely oblivious to how cold Donghyuck was. Rude. Absolutely rude. How dare he be getting some quality REM sleep while Donghyuck was suffering. Can he turn towards him already?! He’s never had to wait for cuddles before.
A few more minutes pass. He’s wide awake.
There are no stars on the ceiling, unlike Mark’s room. In Mark’s room there are exactly 42 stars pasted on the ceiling, courtesy of 8-year-old Mark and his favorite (and most annoying) dongsaeng. He remembers how much he’d begged him to let him paste some of them in shapes instead of the “correct” constellations that Mark (Minhyung, at the time) had planned—there’s a heart right above where they sleep, evidence of Mark’s weakness to puppy eyes and promises to do his chores. Strangely, Donghyuck finds himself missing Minhyung’s bedroom. Minhyung’s because Mark’s bedroom, although the same, was… decorated differently.
He misses Minhyung’s bedroom because all he had on his walls were pictures of them—them and their parents, or them and one of Minhyungie’s teachers because she’d thought Donghyuck had been his blood-related little brother and insisted upon him being in the picture.
They look nothing alike. They’ve never been alike.
And yet somehow, Minhyung went to Canada one summer and came back as Mark—strangely tall and lean and handsome, according to the girls in his class, and he’d become even more different. Even more distant, even more unreachable.
He’d once helped one of them get close to Mark because she wouldn’t quit bothering him about it. Mark had looked Donghyuck straight in the eye after rejecting her and told him never again. Mark does that sometimes—he speaks in code, words grasping for meaning that went deeper than the literal, in layers like the cakes they share during the summer and they’re too lazy to walk much further than the air-conditioned bakery a few blocks down from his apartment.
He’s never quite figured out what he’d meant—what the disappointment and hurt barely hidden in his features were reflective of, but true to his word, Donghyuck had brushed off any further attempts by others to get close to Mark. Because after all, Minhyung was his, even if he’d changed his name and dyed his hair.
Mark is still Minhyung because when he laughs he sounds like he’s hiccupping, shoulders shaking and hand reaching out to slap the shoulder of anyone within range. Mark is Minhyung because he still speaks in waves—slow and fast all at once, tripping over his words to show how impassioned he was, eyes bright and smile brighter. Most of all, Mark is still his Minhyungie because when they’re alone and it’s 2 AM, he kisses Donghyuck’s nose and holds him like there’s nothing wrong with it. Like there’s nothing wrong with who he is, who they were.
Donghyuck makes up his mind.
“Hyu—ng,” He quietly whines, rolling over slowly, pretending to be asleep just in case Mark wasn’t. He rolls over a little more and—success! His floppy arm (because sleeping people were relaxed, always) hits a body.
Something’s a little off once more, Donghyuck notices as he settles his cheek on Mark’s chest, arms looping around his waist. Not only that, but Mark’s not cuddling him back. Donghyuck tries to keep himself from frowning but fails—he’d be halfway into a chokehold by now, usually. This was just unfair. On the one night Donghyuck actually wanted his gross, full body, sweaty cuddles, Mark was unwilling to provide. Ridiculous.
“So, this is what you guys do at night?”
His eyes slam open.
Jaemin.
Donghyuck sits up immediately, slapping him on his too-broad chest. (He knew there had been something off—the smell was different! The lack of reciprocation should’ve given it away really, but he’s been betrayed by his own desperation for cuddles.)
“You’re an asshole.” Donghyuck states as Jaemin laughs so hard he wheezes. “Were you awake this whole time?!”
Jaemin laughs harder, if that was even possible, attempting to get a single word out. “H-hyung,” He mocks. “H-Hold me, Mark-hyungie!”
“I hate you.” He slaps his friend on the chest again. His cheeks burn in a mix between anger and embarrassment. “You’re dead to me, Na Jaemin. Dead. If you tell—”
“M’not gonna tell, Hyuckie,” Jaemin reassures him, quieting down his giggles. “I promise.”
“Dead to me.” Donghyuck repeats.
“Aww, c’mon—it was cute! I didn’t know you guys cuddled! Or, well, Mark-hyung’s always been sorta touchy in his sleep but I didn’t know you instigated the cuddle fests.”
He almost repeats ‘dead to me’ a third time for emphasis, but decides to spare his friend the repetition. “I don’t. Not… not usually. I was cold, okay?”
“You were…cold, huh? It’s like 25 degrees in the house, I’m sweating. It’s literally July.”
He flushes at the reminder. “Shut up.”
“Y’know, you can just say you wanted to cuddle with Mark-hyung, I don’t min—“
“I didn’t.” He scooches the 8 centimeters back to his side of the bed, and buries himself into the covers, attempting to block off all sound coming from his horrible friend.
“I’ll cuddle you if you call me ‘hyung’ again,” Jaemin croons, and Donghyuck doesn’t need to turn around to see the shit-eating grin he’s got plastered on his face. “Since you’re so “cold.””
“Fuck off, you absolute dickbag.” He huffs into his pillow.
A pair of arms wrap around him from behind anyways, and Donghyuck can feel the boy shrug. “Close enough. I miss cuddling Injun, you can be his substitute.”
And perhaps they’re not the arms he’s used to, but Jaemin’s comfortable too, and Donghyuck has little to no trouble adjusting so that his back was flush to his chest, like he usually cuddled with Mark.
“Why didn’t you sleep with Renjun tonight, then?” He murmurs, eyes already closing at the comfortable warmth radiating between them.
“Because he wanted to sleep with Jeno and Mark-hyung.” He receives a grumble in return.
“Why didn’t—Mark sleep with me?”
Jaemin grins, Donghyuck can feel it against the back of his neck. “Because I wanted to see his reaction when I said that I wanted to sleep with you.”
“…And?”
“Gotta say, he looked pretty bummed out. Almost said no, too.”
Donghyuck snorts softly, slowly drifting off further, managing one more word. “Asshole.”
“Just a little.” He hears Jaemin agree, before he’s finally out like a light, his friend’s arms (that he definitely finds just as comfortable as Mark’s, maybe even more) wrapped loosely around him.
When he wakes up the next morning, he’s sandwiched in between two bodies, and uncomfortably so.
He doesn’t even properly open his eyes before he’s whining that it’s way too hot and pushing away the blanket, struggling through the arms that hold him firm in place.
“Stop, please,” Mark (When did Mark get here, he wonders blearily) mumbles, grabbing his flailing arms and pulling Donghyuck to him more snuggly, throwing a leg over Donghyuck’s and locking their ankles together.
This was all good and well and normal, except for a certain being that was currently huffing on the back of his neck, making his hair stand on end. Even though Mark currently had a hand shoved between Donghyuck’s and Jaemin’s bodies (he has no idea how it managed to get there but well, it’s there and it’s not coming out anytime soon), Jaemin still held onto Donghyuck like a leech, long limbs stretching to grasp any part of him.
It’s… well, it’s not the most comfortable predicament he’s ever been in but when he tries to wriggle out of it Mark’s knee comes painfully close to colliding with his crotch, which, needless to say, renders Donghyuck frozen as adrenaline and fear runs through his veins. And so, he patiently waits for one of his bed partners to wake up, fear of castration greater than his need to move.
Donghyuck’s counting Mark’s slow breaths as the door creaks, a head of black hair poking through.
In the dim light offered by the slowly rising sun peeking through the blinds, Donghyuck can just barely make out Renjun’s sleepy, disgruntled expression. He sighs, rubbing his eyes cutely and running a hand through his hair before he notices Donghyuck’s eyes on him.
“Oh, you’re awake. I was wondering where Mark ran off to, but I guess I shouldn’t have.”
Donghyuck nods just barely, careful to not disturb Mark. “Why’re you up?”
“Couldn’t sleep. I missed…” He watches in amusement as Renjun’s eyes flicker from the floor to the body resting behind him. “I like sleeping in between them… I guess. Jeno kicks in his sleep sometimes and he never wants to be the big spoon! And hyung didn’t cuddle with us so…”
He would make fun of his friend for being unable to sleep without his boyfriend but well, it’d be a tad bit hypocritical so he abstains. Instead, he opens his mouth to ask him to help Donghyuck out of the vice his two friends have him trapped in—but a gruff, sleep-addled voice interrupts him.
“Baobei, c’mere,” Jaemin whines from behind Donghyuck, releasing him from his embrace and instead opening his arms to his boyfriend, waving him over so he can join them. And join them he does, messily stepping over Donghyuck and Mark’s legs to flop into his boyfriend’s open arms, ignoring Donghyuck’s hiss of “Ouch, asshole,” when he kicks him in the calf by accident.
They stay up whispering a little bit, completely ignoring Donghyuck. (Which was rude and uncalled for, but he supposes he doesn’t really want to know what they’re talking about anyway. At least, not when they’re separated by a few layers of clothing and nothing else, faces mushed together, cheek to cheek. It’s sweet but honestly, if Donghyuck had to look at them for more than a few seconds he’d feel nauseous at how they seem to melt into each other. Corny shit just wasn’t his expertise.) And in the stillness of the room, his friend’s muted voices barely reaching his ears, Donghyuck falls asleep again, Mark’s breath ruffling his hair on every exhale.
He gets ruffled awake a little while later, but refuses to open his eyes, instead cuddling further into Mark’s neck because he deserves more sleep.
“—left me there alone and cold!” Jeno whines from the vague direction of the door as Renjun giggles guiltily. Donghyuck has half a mind to snap at him to just go cuddle his dumb boyfriends because he knew that’s where this was heading anyway. But that would take him even further out of his half-asleep state, so he tries to drown out Jaemin’s voice as he (predictably) calls for him to “get over here, you big baby,” and Mark sighs in his sleep as Jeno climbs over them to flop on top of his boyfriends.
The bed was far too small for four people, much less five. He’s pretty sure that if he pushed the chest in front of him a bit, Mark would end up sprawled on the ground, dragging Donghyuck with him because of course he would. That’s the only reason Donghyuck grabs onto him a bit tighter, nosing right into his clavicle, hand grabbing onto the fabric of the back of his sleep-shirt. Right. The only reason, he convinces himself.
He drifts off again, wondering when the scent of his best friend’s body wash and laundry detergent became home.
They’re at Mark’s house half a day later, having been rudely woken up by their group’s two youngest tackling them, complaining that they hadn’t been invited to the cuddle pile, Jisung accidentally kneeing Mark in the crotch (twice, somehow) and bruising both Jaemin and Donghyuck with his bony elbows and butt, all the while Chenle’s laugh sounded off right next to their ears.
Needless to say, they showed up to breakfast a little worse for wear, like soldiers returning home from a gruesome, unnecessary war.
Donghyuck and Mark had excused themselves after breakfast (and another hour of video games) to head back to his house. Mark wasn’t the kind of person that could handle being around a group for more than a day straight, especially when said group was as loud and rambunctious as they were, and Donghyuck didn’t particularly feel like heading home just yet; Mark’s house was closer to Jaemin’s anyways.
Mark sighs quietly, tiredly—disrupting the peaceful silence they had adopted since they’d entered his room, Donghyuck immediately heading towards his bookshelf (fully stocked with books he’d bought because Mark is illiterate and stupid and had no taste in literature). It draws his eyes away from the novel he’d been trying to concentrate on, gaze landing on the older boy’s form as he sits, slightly hunched over as he looks down at his phone. He looks softer than usual, somehow. His glasses sit on his nose, nose scrunched slightly in concentration. His hair, floppy because he’d only run his fingers through it in lieu of combing it, falling slightly into his pretty eyes.
Pretty eyes that swivel up towards Donghyuck’s when he notices he’s being watched.
“How’s your dick doing?”
Mark laughs. “Still hurts, man. He might as well have castrated me. You?”
Donghyuck knows he’s talking about his bruises, but he’s a little shit anyways because why not—any opportunity to talk about his dick was a good one. “It’s big as usual. Long, too.”
Mark scrunches his nose in distaste. “I’ve literally seen you naked.”
“Oho! We have a first-hand account then,” Donghyuck makes a fist as if he were holding a microphone, ready to interview his friend. “You’ve seen the masterpiece in real life! How was it?”
“Disappointing, if I had to be honest.”
Donghyuck gasps. “Wow. Coming from mister three-inch over here, that really hits home.”
“What the fuck are we doing?” Mark laughs, slapping his arm. “This is gay.”
“You’re gay.” Comes his clever retort, finger poking at Mark’s kneecap.
And suddenly, Mark falls silent, lips pressing together. It’s not a negative look, but it’s a bit intense for the joking mood they’d just had, so he quiets as well, tilting his head up at his friend in confusion.
“Yeah,” He confirms, looking down at his phone and back up to meet Donghyuck’s eyes. “And… And if I am?”
Donghyuck’s heart hammers in his chest. So this was it, Mark was finally coming out and he actually chose him to come out to first. Something in his throat tightens in happiness at being so trusted, so valued in his best friend’s eyes. His mouth falls open—and then shuts again, quickly, because Mark looks worried for some reason. “Then you’re gay.”
Nice one, Donghyuck, way to save the day.
“Well, I mean—hyung,” He stumbles to correct himself. “Our entire friend group is gay. Our best friends are literally three gay dudes in a poly relationship. If anything… you being a token straight was weird? Or, well, not weird or anything! Just… Cool. Welcome to the club.”
Mark gives him a weird look, but he’s relaxed a bit, shoulders no longer tensed, mouth no longer angled downward in a stressed pout. Donghyuck takes it as a good sign. “You’re… gay too?”
He snorts. “What, you thought I was straight? I’ve never had a girlfriend.”
“But you’ve never had a boyfriend, either.”
Right, Donghyuck thinks, because I’ve been too busy being in love with a certain someone. He shrugs instead of being an idiot who says everything he thinks. (Contrary to popular belief, he does actually have a filter, thank you very much.) He settles on “too busy” as an answer, thankful that Mark accepts it without any qualms.
“So? How did you figure it out?”
Mark smiles at the question, fond as he answers that boys made his heart race in ways that his girlfriends never did.
They fall asleep that night holding hands because Donghyuck didn’t feel like going back home yet, didn’t feel like leaving him to sleep alone. And well, if he gets better sleep when Mark’s next to him, cold hands on his waist, then that’s his business, wasn’t it? He blinks up at the plastic green stars on Mark’s ceiling, making the same wish as always, but this time it’s with hope that he’s not imagining the way Mark’s heart is beating in his chest, soft but fast against Donghyuck’s shoulder.
Minhyung—no, Mark kisses his temple when he thinks he’s asleep. Donghyuck wonders if it’s always been like this. Wonders if his feelings have always had difficulty staying inside of his mouth, stuck inside the lining of his lungs. There’s something about it that’s too familiar and bittersweet—perhaps it’s the knowledge that nothing had changed.
Mark falls asleep easily, curling into Donghyuck’s side as he breathes, quiet and rhythmical, the ebb and flow of the ocean filling the room. His fingers find their ways to Minhyung’s hair, gently running through the strands, remembering.
Remembering how Minhyung had left him that one summer with a bright smile and hug, how they’d had a sleepover the night before, staying up until 3 or 4 in the morning chatting about their favorite animes and comic books, about nothing at all. Remembering how they’d held hands all the way to Minhyung’s dad’s car, their matching dark brown hair mussed from lack of sleep. Remembering how he’d waved goodbye to his Minhyungie, unaware that it’d be the last time he’d see him.
It was somewhat cruel, he supposes, to separate his favorite person into two people depending upon their actions and age but it was...true, in some ways. Minhyung was shy but kind, cuddly and touchy—he’d never minded when Donghyuck clung to him while they watched TV, while they wrestled playfully in Donghyuck’s backyard, Donghyuck hitting his head on the wooden swingset his hyung had helped them build.
If Donghyuck liked Minhyung, he adored Mark. Because Mark came back from his trip to Canada as an awkward, cool teenager, slightly self-flagellant and cynical but somehow hot at the same time. He liked rap and dressed differently and dyed his hair—and started brushing off Donghyuck’s physical affection like it somehow pained him. It was strange, because they more he pushed him away, the more desperate Donghyuck grew for his attention—for his approving smiles, for his one armed hugs that had a clear no-homo undertone, for the way he’d ruffle his hair and call him “Hyuck-ah” with a smile on his lips when he did something particularly stupid or funny. It was absurd really, because whereas Minhyung was home, Mark made his heart race and blood rush to his cheeks—because Mark was, well, Mark. Taller and more handsome, which shouldn’t matter that much but for some reason it does, because his pulse pounds in his ears whenever they touch, whenever his eyes flick to Donghyuck’s too fast and his breath catches in his throat.
There was something different about the way he held himself—he was awkward, sure, but somehow he seemed to know exactly what to do and how to do it.
It really isn’t fair, because even though his new name was Mark and he was so, so different, when they’re alone, it’s hard not to see him as his lovely Minhyungie—small and asleep, skin as beautiful as always, eyes softly closed as his hands hold onto the bottom of Donghyuck’s shirt.
He’d assumed his crush on his best friend would have gone away by now, what with the way he brushes off his touches in public, dodging his cheek kisses, but it clearly hasn’t—if anything, he’s even more obsessed with the way his eyelashes cast shadows on his cheeks and the dichotomy between his two personalities that Donghyuck just can’t seem to merge in his head.
The only word Donghyuck can muster to describe his situation was perplexing.
But nowadays, it’s become easier to see bits of Minhyung shine through Mark, his gentleness coming back bit by bit, his laughs gradually becoming happier, bigger, and more high pitched because he’s stopped caring so much about how his face looks when he’s mid-laugh. (You look ugly no matter what, Donghyuck tells him one night, in a rare attempt to address their individual problems, so you should just laugh how you want to. Mark snorts at that, punching his arm in offense. But he stops covering the bottom half of his face with his hand while he laughs so Donghyuck considers it a definite win.)
He sees Minhyung in the childlike wonder that shines in his round eyes when they watch some dumb documentary about the stars he’d picked out, sees him in the way Mark puts in effort to attend Donghyuck’s vocal lessons with him every once in a while—because he loves Donghyuck’s voice and because Donghyuck’s vocal coach has a weird middle-aged girlcrush on him. Not that he blames her. He sees him in nights like these, where Mark presses kisses to his temples and to the top of his head like he’s made of porcelain, like he’s something to be handled preciously, carefully. Which Donghyuck personally disagrees with, but he’s not about to tell him to stop.
Mark shifts under his fingers a little, and Donghyuck continues sifting his fingers through his soft hair, massaging the back of his head gently.
This was fine too. He doesn’t particularly have to reconcile Mark’s two personas in his head in order to love him quietly, for every little bit of him.
The stars, glowing bright above him, mock him once more, wondering whether he prefers the fake green glow of their dyed plastic or the soft, kind light of those hundreds of thousands of miles away.
The days come and go from then on, summer fading into autumn as Donghyuck’s last year of high school starts and Mark begins attending college. They still crash at each other’s houses, but not as much.
Mark still shrugs off his affection, but not as much.
Donghyuck’s still in love with him.
Which is why he’s sitting on Mark’s bed after school, even though he knows very well that the older still has class until 3:30. He’s not planning on doing much—he thought he’d just chill for a while and wait for him to get home, maybe he’d hide behind the door and scare him a little. He decides against it eventually though, taking out his homework and starting to write an essay that he had to finish for Monday.
He’s halfway through it when the front door opens and he perks up at the sound, quickly shoving his pens back into his pencil pouch and into his backpack, because he’d decided that he’s going to force Mark to treat them to ice cream for working so hard. He packs up and leaves the room, a tiny skip in his step even though he knows he’s going to end up slipping a five-dollar bill in Mark’s pocket by the end of their ice cream excursion (because Mark actually did pay last time and Donghyuck just wanted the thrill of persuading his friend to pay for both of them, not to rob him of his already scarce money.)
But when he peeks around the corner a voice he doesn’t recognize, low and in a whisper, makes itself heard. “So? Where do you want to do this?”
The intruder has brown hair, a nice physique, and Donghyuck’s best friend pinned to the wall of his entryway. Donghyuck turns right around, eyes wide and brain slamming to a halt as he hides behind the corner again.
Mark says something his ears don’t register because Donghyuck’s ears are burning and his chest is burning and his legs are telling him to run right out of the window he crawled in from because now they’re kissing and he’s never felt this bewildered in his entire life. Shit, he realizes belatedly. They’re definitely on their way to his bedroom. Shit.
If he left through the window now, they’d catch him and it’d be awkward because the window is not quiet at all, it makes this groaning screech when it opens so that’s not an option. If he ran back into Mark’s room and hid somewhere there it’d be even worse because he’d have to hear that going on and that’s not something he ever wanted to hear in his entire life.
So that leaves him with one, horrible option.
He cringes before schooling his expression into one of purity, rounding the corner with an innocent call of “Mark-hyung! Are you home yet—oh.“
Mark stares at him for a second, dumbfounded, before hurrying to push the other boy off of him. Donghyuck takes the opportunity to take in the boy’s general appearance. He’s decently handsome, but all he can see are his lips. They’re bruised, dirty.
“Oh my god, uh,” Mark clears his throat and Donghyuck has to physically bite his cheek to keep from cringing at how flustered he looks. Serves him right. “Hyuck-ah, this is um, Jaehyun-hyung, he’s… a friend. Hyung, this is my childhood friend, Donghyuck.”
Donghyuck bows slightly at the older boy, who then looks at him with wide eyes, glancing back at Mark with his eyebrows raised. “Wait, is he—?”
“Shut up,” Mark hisses under his breath, and Donghyuck kindly pretends he doesn’t see Mark’s elbow jab into Jaehyun’s side.
“Anyways,” Donghyuck chimes in, voice light, careful. He’s an elephant in a glass menagerie and Mark looks at him like he knows something’s wrong. “I’m gonna head out. You two have fun.”
He steps past them, careful not to hit either of them, very careful to not touch anything at all but the door handle, opening the door quietly and leaving, his head abuzz with something he can’t quite place.
“Wait, Hyuck!” Mark calls after him and Donghyuck knows he’s standing at the door like the dumbass he is because he never knows when to give it up. “We weren’t! We weren’t going to— uhm…”
He turns to see the exact scene he’d predicted, Mark holding the door open, flustered while his lost-looking friend lingered in the doorway behind him. Donghyuck raises an eyebrow. “Bold of you to assume I care about what or who you do on your own time, Minhyungie.”
Mark’s mouth hangs open and he shuts it with a quiet “oh,” curling in on himself a little. He doesn’t even bother to correct his name or honorifics and Donghyuck feels tired suddenly, exhausted by how small his best friend looks on his doorstep, staring at the concrete under his feet. “Okay. Get home safe.”
He doesn’t bother answering, merely sending him what feels like a horribly fake smile before turning around, backpack slung over one shoulder.
Donghyuck walks home blissfully blank, feeling nothing, thinking nothing.
That is, until he’s at home, backpack in hand, it’s contents on the floor, realizing that his half-finished essay wasn’t anywhere to be seen.
He spends the rest of the day crying into the knock-off Charmander plush that Chenle had given him last year at the fair because Mark was horrible at games and couldn’t win Donghyuck any prizes even though he’d promised to.
He cries because Mark was pretty and lovable and so unfair, so so unfair because Donghyuck has always been just a little bit (a lot) in love with him. He cries because Mark is insufferable and annoying and now has half of his essay sitting somewhere on his bedroom floor, unfinished, his neat handwriting filling a single page and a half when the requirement was 3 pages minimum. He cries because lately his best friend has been looking like he’s been beaten with a particularly sturdy stick—if not the whole tree. He cries because Mark’s university is taking his best friend away, causing him to study more and sleep less and see Donghyuck less, because now he makes more time for his university friends, cares more for his university friends. He cries because he still somehow loves him, loves him more now, after watching him stretch himself thin and still greet Donghyuck with a bright smile, even if he’s being annoying.
He cries because he deserves neither Mark nor Minhyung.
When he exits his room later that day to wash his face and brush his teeth and maybe just restart his essay because there’s no way in hell he’s going to go get it, there’s a small stack of paper resting right outside of his bedroom, held down by a tiny glass paperweight in the shape of a ladybug. He audibly sighs as he picks up the stack, pocketing the small, delicate piece of glass and flips through the sheets, noting where his penmanship stops halfway through, black pen stopping in the middle of a word, noting how his pen strokes were picked up by pencil, careful marks, deliberate and neat because he’s complained to Mark a million times that he can’t read his messy script for the life of him. The pencil continues down the page and for two pages after that, formatting an essay that he himself couldn’t have ever done because literature, as fake as it seems, is Mark’s forte. Or rather, debate in context of literature. Literature wasn’t his thing because he was illiterate and never chose to read. Instead, he’d actively protest against Donghyuck reading because there were obviously better ways to spend his time, for example making corny jingles for each of their favorite cereal brands, or beating Mark’s ass in a video game of his choice.
He’s not sure what to do with the papers, what to do with the small post-it note on the bottom right corner of the last page.
In Mark’s normal, messy, absolutely horrendous handwriting, there’s a small “sorry” and a tiny drawing of a ladybug placed in the middle of the note. Donghyuck smiles down at it. Mark’s always had a way with words.
It wasn’t even Mark’s fault; it wasn’t his fault at all that Donghyuck had thrown himself too deep into this hole that he’d dug all by himself. But he’d still apologized.
Little drops of saltwater splash onto his handwriting, smearing the ink past readability but he refuses to acknowledge that they came from his face, so Donghyuck just sniffs loudly, wiping his nose on the back of his sweater-paw.
He’d figure out what to do with the paper later, when he’d properly apologized for the way he’d stormed out of Mark’s home and hadn’t even bothered to excuse himself from his guest. Even if they’re—still doing what Donghyuck had assumed they were going to, Donghyuck would just knock on the door anyway because he hates going to bed mad at Mark and he knows Mark feels uneasy about it too. He glances at his cluttered desk once more before setting down the stack of papers and grabbing his jacket. It’s 7:45 PM, there’s still some light outside but just barely, and the rain that had started in the middle of his breakdown had now slowed down to a drizzle.
However, his plans drastically change when he opens his front door to see a figure sitting on the concrete steps, head leaning against his shoulder at an uncomfortable angle. He’s wearing a thin red t-shirt.
Donghyuck knows the print on it very well. He’s seen it being put on and taken off a thousand times because it’s the shirt Mark had received when he graduated elementary school, Donghyuck tugging at the bottom when he’d first tried it on, disastrously large. So large, in fact, that they could fit under it together. Which they did.
At some point, Donghyuck had stopped seeing the older boy wear it as anything but a sleep shirt—hell, even he’d worn it on a few occasions where his pajamas at Mark’s house were in the wash and he couldn’t be assed to head home to get new ones.
The figure on the steps doesn’t move an inch, even as Donghyuck lets the door shut behind him fully, making a soft click as the lock slips in place.
“Mark-hyung?” He ventures, gently, just in case.
No response, and Donghyuck shivers as the cooler evening air reaches his exposed face. It’s cold—not unbearably so, but Mark’s sleeping out here in just a t-shirt. Donghyuck stares at his back.
He wonders if it had ever seemed so small.
Shrugging off his jacket, he sends a quick mental thanks to himself for taking the biggest jacket he has, because he finds it easy to wrap them both in it, pulling his left arm through and wrapping the rest around them, leading Mark’s arm through the other sleeve.
Mark snuffles in his sleep—at the warmth perhaps, or because he’d been shuffled around as Donghyuck had pulled his arm through the jacket. He noses into Donghyuck’s neck, murmuring something incomprehensible, eyebrows slightly drawn together in poor mimicry of the look Mark usually gets when he’s stressed. This is something sweeter, softer, and Donghyuck allows himself a minute to enjoy the way his lips are pressed against his neck.
There’s something so innocent about the way he sleeps that he almost takes out his phone to take a photo of Mark’s face—just to thoroughly ruin the moment because it’s something he doesn’t deserve. It’s too intimate, it’s not meant for him and sending a piece of it to their group chat so they can all make fun of his best friend’s sleeping face together would allow him to pretend that his heart stammering in his throat was imaginary, a part of a grandiose joke between them all.
Donghyuck stamps down his masochistic impulses, resting his head on top of Mark’s instead.
He’s trying his best not to laugh at a meme Jaemin sent to the group chat when Mark finally makes it known that he’s awake—or perhaps, has been awake because he startles Donghyuck with the way he laughs, shoulders shaking, eyes that had previously been spying on Donghyuck’s screen now mostly closed in amusement.
“Mornin’,” He finally says once he’s done laughing, head still firmly placed on Donghyuck’s shoulder.
It’s been about an hour, and the drizzle has finally slowed to a stop, the sun having gone with a pretty array of colors that he’d sent a picture of to Renjun, because Renjun loves that kind of stuff. His phone is half dead. He could care less.
Donghyuck sighs, apology stuck on the tip of his tongue and he should say it, just say it, because keeping it in is like being in purgatory. “Sleep well?” He says instead, and means it, mostly.
Mark hums, the vibration spreading from his neck to his jaw, one of his hands holding onto the bottom of Donghyuck’s t-shirt once more. “Didn’t mean to fall asleep—just wanted to wait out the rain.”
A slight smile comes to his face as he realizes that Mark had come all the way over, even with the threat of rain, until he remembers how he’d sat there when Donghyuck stepped outside, shivering. The smile drops right off of his face, replaced with a grimace. “Why didn’t you stay inside? You were cold. It’s cold.”
Donghyuck feels him shrug, playing nonchalant. He knows why, actually. They both know he was wary of impeding on Donghyuck’s space because he had been upset and crying—which is incredibly embarrassing now that he thinks about it, because he had never expected his hiccups and sobs, muffled only by a few square centimeters of fabric, to be overheard. It was already enough that Mark had taken the spare key Donghyuck had given specifically for occasions where he was getting murdered by a serial killer but for some reason all the doors entering the house were locked, so outsiders couldn’t help him. Although, given that he’d been given the key right after they’d had a horror movie marathon with the others, Mark chooses to just believe that Donghyuck was looking for the right opportunity to slip him the key (and responsibility) anyways.
It’s quiet, but not uncomfortable. If Donghyuck didn’t know any better, he would’ve believed that they were still on good terms, that Mark hadn’t half-broken his heart once again, and that he hadn’t spent the afternoon crying. Half-broken, because he’s already used to this, should already be used to it because Mark has had countless girlfriends (two). The first cut is always the deepest, was the deepest—he’d taken a half-year to recover from the betrayal he felt when he’d see them holding hands or hugging. Because that was his place. That was his spot.
He’s not sure why he’d convinced himself to expect something, just because Mark had confessed that he was into men.
It slowly gets to be pitch-dark, the only light present being the one behind them, coming from one of the windows of Donghyuck’s house. Water drips off of the roof, landing half a foot away from their feet, congregating in a small puddle. Mark breathes slowly, against his shoulder. He’s about to suggest that they go inside and get out of the cold, when Mark interrupts his thoughts.
“We weren’t doing anything.”
Donghyuck shoots him a weird look, jostling Mark’s head off of his shoulder so he can receive the full force of Donghyuck’s intense judgment.
“I’m serious!” Mark protests, tugging on his shirt a little. “We were just kissing—I asked him to. Well, actually, he kind of… offered. Because I’ve—I’ve never,” His voice drops down to a whisper. “…kissed a… guy.”
“That’s not even vaguely believable, Mark-hyung.”
“But it’s the truth!” Mark frowns at him, and it’s cute, too cute. Donghyuck’s heart skips a beat in his chest, completely ignoring his will to be upset. “I just—wanted to practice. And Jaehyun-hyung offered because he’s a good friend.”
Donghyuck tsks in disbelief. “Then what am I? Am I not a good friend, huh? Am I just trash to you, now?” He’s teasing, he swears he’s just teasing to keep the mood light but something about the way his mouth forms the words resonates with something deeper within him, something he dares not touch normally. His voice thickens. “Now that you’ve got your college friends it’s so easy to leave the rest of us behind, huh?”
Mark blinks at him in shock, mouth falling into the upside down V-shape that Donghyuck loves so much. “Is…Is that what you think?”
“What am I supposed to think?” Donghyuck sighs.
“You’re not. You’re not trash and I’m not—I’m sorry I haven’t been able to hang out so much but I’m not leaving you. You’re still my number one, Hyuck-ah.”
“Doesn’t feel like it, hyung.”
Incredulous for some reason, perhaps because for once he’s properly calling him hyung, perhaps because he genuinely believes he’s in the right, Mark stares at him, eyebrows drawn together. “But you are,” He says, as if inflection would make his lies more believable. “You’ve always been my number one.”
Donghyuck almost guffaws at that. Who knew his best friend could be such a comedian? “That’s not how it works—the second you find someone new you forget about the rest of us. Like with Jisoo, like with Seulgi. And now it’s gonna happen with Jack-off—“
“His name’s Jaehyun.”
“Whatever. Point is—you didn’t ask me to kiss you, right?”
“What the hell are you even talking about, Donghyuck?” He’s mad, Donghyuck can feel it in the way he tenses beside him, before carefully taking a breath to calm himself down. “You’re…different. I would never ask that of you it’s—“
Donghyuck laughs, but it sounds hollow even to his own ears. “See? I’m different, hyung. I’m just some dumb kid you’re gonna leave behind to—“ He sniffs miserably and oh god, the tears are coming again, this was horrible. “Whatever, Minhyungie. Go make out with your boyfriend. I don’t care! Just don’t pity me by saying I’m your number one.”
In order to save some semblance of composure, he stands, shrugging out of the jacket, looking down as Mark stares back up at him, confused and angry.
“Donghyuck—“ Mark calls after him as he turns abruptly, heading back to the door, opening it with a swing of pure annoyance.
“No.” He snaps.
The door slams.
It takes him three minutes of sitting there, back against the wall they’d drawn all over in crayon when they were in grade school, to stop crying.
It takes him just another two of sitting there, wallowing in self-pity, to open up the door again and gruffly tell Mark to get inside before he freezes to death.
The Mark in his head tells him to fuck off. The Mark in his head punches him in the face because he knows he deserves it. The Minhyung in his head calls him a baby and brushes past him to enter his house. The Mark in his head is long gone. He’d left the second the door slammed.
The real Mark stares up at him with tears in his eyes, sniffling pitifully from where he sits, hunched over because of the cold, Donghyuck’s jacket hanging loosely off of his shoulders.
The real Mark hiccups out an “I’m so sorry,” and stands, pulling Donghyuck into a tight embrace, burying his face into Donghyuck’s neck again like it belongs there.
“I didn’t—I th-thought—I didn’t know you felt like this.”
Donghyuck hugs him back, hugs him tighter because he can’t remember the last time Mark has ever cried, especially not in front of him. His nose burns from the cold but he just stands there and presses their bodies together like they’ll merge if he tries hard enough.
He rocks them back and forth, and back and forth again, until slowly but surely, Mark stops his heavy, stuttered breathing.
“I don’t want to lose you, I can’t,” He whispers once the storm is over.
Donghyuck squeezes him once, gentle because he doesn’t know anything else at the moment. “You won’t.”
Mark shivers, and Donghyuck lightly leads them inside, the assumption that he’s going to stay over unspoken because that’s how it always was.
It seems crying so much has really tired both of them out, because they find themselves in bed not even a full hour later, teeth brushed and pajamas on. Mark’s curled up on his side, burning holes in the side of Donghyuck’s face, as he stares up at the ceiling.
There’s a distinct lack of stars.
Something corny deep inside him whispers that Mark’s the only star he needs, and he snorts out loud at the thought because truly, how cliché can he get?
He sees a smile spread across Mark’s face in his periphery.
“What?” He whispers, pointer finger gently prodding Donghyuck’s cheek.
Donghyuck turns towards him, mouth opening as if to eat Mark’s finger. Mark retracts it with an offended look, half disgusted and half amused.
“You’re lame.”
Mark makes an indignant noise. “Why am I lame?”
“I don’t want to lose you,” Donghyuck parrots, whispering with as much B-list movie passion that he can muster. “I ca—“
He’s interrupted by Mark’s hand, which does a surprisingly good job of muffling the dramatic monologue he had planned. “Stop making fun of me,” Mark whines, eyebrows pushing together in a pout. “I have feelings, too!”
Donghyuck goes mum before raising his eyebrows and removing Mark’s hand from his mouth with one of his. “Allegedly.”
The last thing he hears is an “alright, that’s it—“ before he’s ambushed by a pillow to the face and punished by the subsequent flailing of limbs as Mark attempts to wrestle him into keeping his mouth shut. Which, truly, would never happen, so he was a fool for trying.
Contrary to what his general noodle-like appearance would suggest, Mark’s actually been working out—he’s gotten quite a bit stronger since he’d met his college friends, leading Donghyuck to suspect that they went to the gym together.
Dumb jocks.
Which is why Mark currently has one of his arms pinned under his knee and is working on the other, panting hard as Donghyuck flails it about, trying both to evade Mark’s grip and land a smack on his face. Unfortunately, he only manages to bat the side of his head before Mark grabs his arm and pins it to his side, Donghyuck flopping about like a fish out of water in an attempt to buck the older boy off of him.
“Say it. Say I’m not lame.” Mark says in between pants.
“Or else...?”
“I’ll…I’ll…” Mark presses his lips together, and apparently thinks of Chenle because he considers a tactic only the younger would pull. “I’ll spit on you.”
Donghyuck grins, before making an obnoxiously loud slurping noise. He laughs as Mark physically retracts into himself in disgust. “Do it, you coward. Spit on me.”
“I’m not doing that.”
“You did it with Jack-off a few hours ago, though?”
“I didn’t just—“ Mark flounders, giving the younger a scandalized look. “I didn’t just spit in his mouth, Donghyuck! What would you know about it anyway?!”
Donghyuck frowns. “I know plenty!”
“Yeah? How many people have you kissed?” Mark’s got that smug look on his face and man, Donghyuck wishes his arms weren’t pinned so he could wipe it off for him. He’s got a point though, he’s only kissed one person and—
“Jaemin doesn’t count.” Mark adds. “We’ve all kissed Jaemin.”
Donghyuck wrinkles his nose in contemplation. Well, shit. There goes his one person.
“That’s right, that’s what I thought.”
“If you spit on me, you could make it two—“
“First of all, that’s not how kissing works.” Mark stares him down in disgust but Donghyuck knows him well enough to see mirth hidden behind his displeasure. “And second of all, I am not doing that.”
Donghyuck huffs haughtily. “Well fuck you too then. Get your bony ass off of me so I can resume being a loser that’s never kissed anyone.”
Mark frowns. “No.”
However, he does take some pity on Donghyuck, because he settles himself down on top of him, finally freeing the younger’s arms, which had in the meantime gone numb, a fact which Donghyuck is immediate to point out. Mark pinches his cheeks in annoyance, grumbling about how he’s lucky he let him go at all, brat.
“It’s not a bad thing,” Mark decides to say next, hands still playing with the baby fat on Donghyuck’s cheeks. “Sorry for making fun of you for it.”
He scrunches his face in distaste. “Oh, please. I would be kissing every boy alive if I could.”
“Then why aren’t you?”
Donghyuck presses his lips together and regrets what he says next before he even says it. “Because I like someone, fool.”
“Wait…” Mark furrows his brows. “Then why were you jealous of me practicing with Jaehyun-hyung?”
Donghyuck gives him a bland look. Idiot, he chants in his mind, Donghyuck, you’re in love with a goddamn idiot. “I wasn’t jealous.”
“Do you… I mean…”
He already doesn’t like where this is going.
“Did you want to practice, too? Are you disappointed that I didn’t go to you first?”
Donghyuck snorts, bringing up a hand to pat Mark’s head patronizingly. “Sure. Whatever helps you sleep at night, hyung. Now, what do you say we give your one tiny, miniscule brain cell a rest—it’s worked really hard today.”
Frowning at him, Mark lets himself be pushed off of Donghyuck. “Y’know, if you wanted to kiss me, you could just… ask.”
He’s been kissing Mark (although, granted, not on the lips) for a while now with mixed results, but Donghyuck doesn’t bring up their other 3 AM touches because he’s not a masochist. Instead, he rolls over, replying with a huff. “Goodnight, Minhyung.”
Five whole minutes pass before Mark’s crowding his space, winding an arm around Donghyuck’s waist and nuzzling into his neck. He just hopes the full-body shiver he emitted at the sensation wasn’t too obvious. Donghyuck can feel Mark’s heartbeat against his back, faint but fast, rabbit thumps against his skin.
“…What’re you doing?” He quietly murmurs, acting half-asleep because well, he kind of was before Mark decided to impede upon his bed rights. Not like he wasn’t used to it, though.
Mark shrugs. The rabbit thumps get a bit stronger. “S’comfortable.”
A comfortable silence washes over them, Donghyuck sighing the events of the day out of his lungs, out of his head.
“Why didn’t you ask me first?” The question floats between them quietly, so quietly that Donghyuck becomes unsure whether he’d said it all.
Finally, after a long moment of contemplation, Mark responds, mouthing the words against Donghyuck’s shoulder. “I told you, you’re too special.” His grip on Donghyuck’s waist tightens so slightly he wouldn’t have noticed if every one of his cells weren’t hyperaware of the other boy at the moment. “If I lost Jaehyun-hyung… It’d hurt y’know? But it wouldn’t be too bad.”
He stops there, and the ‘if I lost you, it’d be unbearable’ goes unsaid, but Donghyuck hears it, feels it anyway. He snorts, suddenly sick of the melancholic mood because it grows in his throat like a glance of ship sails in the distance and a shipwrecked crew on a deserted island, faint hope clawing its way up from his liver, shredding his esophagus in its haste. “You’re that bad at kissing?”
A soft chuckle. “Wanna find out?”
Hope finds its way to his tonsils, dancing about on the back of his tongue and he feels like he’s about to throw up but instead he just whispers, fingers curling in the sheets beside him. “Do I?”
“I want you to.”
He’s not sure what he’s expecting to see when he rolls over, perhaps a bold gaze to match Mark’s confident words, a smirk or a smolder. Instead, he’s met with eyes that flick away from his the second they meet, thin lips pressing together in the way that they always did when he was nervous. Donghyuck really should laugh, mock his best friend for the dichotomy between his words and actions but for some reason the sight makes his chest fill with something special, heaven and honey oozing from his lungs. They’re head to head, face to face for once, their height difference temporarily negated and Donghyuck’s hand has such an easy time finding its way to Mark’s face.
His fingertips rest on sharp cheekbones, flowerbeds blooming under his touch.
“You sure?” He asks, quiet admiration for the way the moon shines through his window, through the slats of his blinds to highlight Mark’s face, the spindly shadows cast by his fingertips falling across his clear skin.
Mark tilts his face up towards Donghyuck, and Donghyuck files away the way his breath hitches audibly in a metaphorical folder in his brain titled ‘delusions that might implicate that Mark likes you back’ that he never dares touch because Lee Donghyuck will not be taken for a fool. Mark’s mint breath fans across his face as he exhales, Donghyuck feeling the bottom of his shirt tug, Mark’s fingers nestled thoroughly in it, wrapped up in fabric just as Donghyuck’s mind is in ether.
“Yeah,” Mark whispers, tongue poking out of his mouth to run over his lips apprehensively.
Donghyuck’s eyes flicker down to his lips and back up again, to dark eyes and a hesitant stare. His thumb touches Mark’s cheek gently and something in him locks into place. He leans in, lightly pressing his lips to Mark’s, strangely unoccupied by how his lips were a bit dry and even more strangely occupied with how Mark sighs through his nose. Donghyuck laughs softly, eyes closed, amused by the whistling sound that Mark breathes out.
Mark presses two more kisses into the raised corners of his mouth, smiling when he opens his eyes. “Again?”
Donghyuck nods, thumb gliding over Mark’s warm cheeks, and leans in once more.
“Y’know, technically,” Donghyuck begins, still a little out of breath—they hadn’t even properly made out but they’re both exhausted from the events of the day, so the separation comes naturally. Their shoulders touch. “I’ve kissed three people now.”
“Huh?” Mark’s voice is groggy, half-asleep. “How does that work?”
Donghyuck grins. “Well there’s Jaemin,”
“Knew it,” Mark mutters to himself.
Ignoring the comment, Donghyuck continues. “—and then there’s you, and Jaehyong.”
“It’s Jaehyun and he’s your hyung.” A pause. “Did you just say Jaehyun?”
“Right, Jaffron—“
“That’s not even a name!”
“What would you know about names? What are you, some sort of name expert? A name connoisseur? Wow, hyung, I can’t believe you’ve never told me—“
“Yes, okay, I’m wrong, you’re right, okay, gotcha—“ Donghyuck doesn’t need to look at him to see him roll his eyes, exasperated. “How did you kiss Jaehyun-hyung?”
“The associative property of saliva, sire.”
Mark sighs. “That’s not how it works, Hyuck—“
He knows damn well that’s not how it works. It’s still funny, though, so he continues his spiel. “Since you kissed him and now you kissed me, we touched the same lips! Therefore, if A is equal to B, and B is equal to C, A is equal to C!”
He looks over to Mark to properly sell his idea, but Mark’s looking at the ceiling, expression curled in disgust.
“I don’t like this.” He finally says.
Expected, but it’s somewhat amusing to see him seriously contemplate something that Donghyuck just pulled out of his ass, so Donghyuck humours him. “Why?”
“Because then it means I’ve kissed Jaemin twice.”
“Oh…” Donghyuck’s expression is starting mirror Mark’s, he can feel his nose scrunching up, revolted. “Ew. Shit, it also means I’ve kissed Jisoo and Seulgi.” He fakes gagging, because Seulgi is literally his next door neighbor and Jisoo has never even pretended to like him, even when Mark and her were dating.
“Umm,” Mark awkwardly announces. Donghyuck glances over to him at the sound, raising his eyebrows at the way he refuses to meet his gaze. “We never…”
Donghyuck’s eyebrows shoot even higher. “You never kissed them? You dated Seulgi for like half a year!”
Mark shrugs. “She’s gay…I’m gay… We never really saw the need to kiss, I guess. We only started dating because she thought she needed a boyfriend. And I guess,” He sighs, finally looking over at Donghyuck, uncharacteristically sober. “I was using her to hide from my own problems.”
Oh. Oh. Was that—Donghyuck’s heart thumps in his throat, louder than any thought his brain could conjure. His mouth runs dry, but he licks lips anyway. “And Jisoo?”
Mark grimaces, most likely remembering the week-long fight he’d had to endure. “Why do you think we broke up?”
“Oh so it wasn’t because your dick is tiny?”
“You’re such an asshole, Hyuck-ah. I’m trying to be serious here.” But he’s grinning, eyes half-closed in the way that Donghyuck adores, so really, annoying him is worth it. “She was horrible anyways, she always complained about me hanging out with you instead of her.”
“You only lasted for like a month, anyhow.” He feels a smile spread across his face as he remembered how good it felt to send her smug looks whenever she’d glare at him after they broke up. Minhyung was his, after all.
“And thank God for that,” Mark agrees. “No way in hell I’d choose her over you. Bros before hoes, and all that.”
Donghyuck scrunches his nose at that. “We’re both gay, Minhyungie. Also, bro-zoning me? Hurtful.”
“Well—you’re gay.” Mark splutters. He’s about 80% sure that that was supposed to be an insult, but the delivery and timing really… just wasn’t there.
Wondering why on Earth his face was flushed, Donghyuck nods. “That’s what I just said, man. You alright there?”
“It’s—It’s just—“ His eyes dart around the room, refusing to meet his eyes. “Why do you still call me, uh, Minhyung?”
Minhyungie, Donghyuck almost corrects him, but holds himself back. “Dunno. Habit, I guess. It makes me remember the old days.”
“Do you…dislike Mark?”
Donghyuck cracks a smile at that, because it sounds just a little too much like his late night thoughts when he separates Mark and Minhyungie into two separate baskets like some nutcase. “Of course I don’t. He’s a shithead, though. I like 9-year-old Minhyungie the best because he actually hung out with me and didn’t ruin my plans by bringing home his college boyfriend and making out with him.”
“He’s not—We’re not dating, first of all, Jaehyun was just being nice because I was worried about kissing you!”
It seems the words just slip out, because Mark looks as surprised as Donghyuck feels. They stare at each other, dumbfounded, each in their own right. Mark’s lips open and close a few times, as if he were going to say something, before he finally continues in a quieter, meek voice.
“And uh, second of all, we didn’t—all we did when you left was finish your essay…”
Donghyuck blinks. “Oh.”
There’s a silence, and Donghyuck, for the first time in his 17 years of life, has no idea what to say.
“Uh, anyways, good night,” Mark takes the opportunity to roll over, until the only part of him that Donghyuck could see were his red-tipped ears.
“Wait, hyung—” Mark snores loudly. “What do you mea—” Another unbearably loud, extraordinarily fake-sounding snore. “Oh my god, would you just listen?!”
Finally, silence.
“For me, it’s been ten years.” And with that, Donghyuck also turns over, for once not annoying Mark to open his boundaries for him, leaving him be. There’s no movement from Mark’s end. Donghyuck sighs internally, because although he knew (officially now) that the love of his life reciprocated his feelings, he couldn’t force him to finish his goddamn confession because he’s in love with an idiot and a coward, a cowardly idiot. A cowardly idiot that ignores his friend in order to write an essay for Donghyuck. A cowardly idiot that can only find the courage to act upon his feelings when they’re in bed together. A cute, cowardly idiot that’s so, so easy to love, if not for the way that he lets Donghyuck absolutely roast him, then for the way he laughs when Donghyuck says something idiotic for the sole purpose of eliciting such a response.
He knows his Minhyung, knows him very well. Which is why he promises to himself that he’ll wheedle a full confession out of him in the morning and then he’ll kiss him silly. He falls asleep a bit after, chest warm with the knowledge that it’s reciprocated, thank the Lord, he definitely owes Jeno a coffee or something, just for putting up with his whining for the past five or so years.
He’s jolted awake not five minutes later, Mark shaking his shoulder forcefully. When Donghyuck opens his eyes and groans, he’s interrupted by a frantic whisper.
“What did you mean by ten years? When?! How?”
He whines once more in displeasure at being awoken before answering, voice a bit shot. “The stars n shit, Minhyung, now can I please go back to sleep—”
Mark frowns, barely reflected by the moonlight streaming in through the window. “The stars? What stars?”
“The ones in your room, dumbass, on your ceiling.” He answers gracefully.
“The—the ones we put up?”
Donghyuck sighs, realizing that there was no way he’d be getting back to sleep at this rate. “Do you have any others?”
When Donghyuck cracks open his eyes, Mark frowns down at him in a contemplative pout. “Well, no, but what’s so special about them?”
“It’s not them, it’s just,” Donghyuck presses his lips together. “It’s just when I realized that I liked you.”
“No, I got that.” Great, he thinks, at least one of Minhyung’s brain cells is working. “But what happened to make you realize it?”
He shrugs. “You let a seven-year-old sabotage your plans and when I kinda ruined the whole true-to-life night sky thing you were trying to do, you…” He feels an embarrassing smile spread on his face at the memory. “You told me it was still cool because I put the stars there. And then you recited some bible verse about how God made the stars but it was nice while it lasted.” Donghyuck teases.
Rolling his eyes, Mark decides to ignore his blatant hit on younger Mark’s religious inclinations. “So it wasn’t like… a big deal to you, or anything?”
“Mmm, not really. It was just like… an ‘oh’ kind of feeling. Like I realized that I want to stick by you for um…” Donghyuck licks his lips, embarrassed. “For forever, I guess.”
Mark blinks softly, tiredly down at him, barely holding back a smile—he’s embarrassed too, Donghyuck can tell because he refuses to make eye contact for more than a few seconds. “Why didn’t you say something earlier, then?”
“Hey, until two months ago, I thought you were straight.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“No, I didn’t,” Donghyuck agrees, because somewhere deep down he’d always known that what Mark felt towards his girlfriends wasn’t real attraction. The only real thought he’d had when Mark came out to him was fucking finally, followed by relief. “Was it a big deal to you?”
“You knowing I wasn’t straight?”
“No, dumbass, you realizing you were in love with the coolest person that has ever set foot on this earth.” He raises his eyebrows, as if to say ‘so how about that?’ and Mark laughs in his face. He doesn’t mind all too much, though, for some mysterious reason.
“It wasn’t really a big deal, per say. I dunno, it’s been like a year or two.”
“Two years?!” Donghyuck interrupts. “Why didn’t you do anything earlier?”
Mark shrugs. “I guess I just assumed you didn’t feel the same.”
Donghyuck opens his mouth to call him an idiot, but closes it again once he recognizes the hypocrisy. “What changed?”
“Jaemin, actually.” Mark nods at Donghyuck’s surprise. “I know, right? He noticed, I guess. And then he told me he’d tell you himself if I didn’t make a move soon.”
“He’s such a meddling little shit,” He says, remembering Jaemin’s acute interest in their cuddling sessions. “…I guess I should thank him, though.”
Mark cracks a smile. “Nah, he sucks. That one you time you fell asleep on me, I carried you all the way to the guest bedroom just to have him tell me that he was going to sleep with you instead. He left me with Jeno. Did you know Jeno kicks in his sleep?”
“So I’ve heard,” Donghyuck grins at the visual. “But that didn’t stop you from being the warmth-leech you usually are.”
“You’re comfortable,” Mark defends. “And anyways, Jaemin was being too… clingy.”
He guffaws, slapping Mark on the arm in the midst of his laughter. “Are you jealous? Is that why you put your hand between us?!”
Mark has the sense to look sheepish. “Listen, he’s charmed two people into dating him already, I don’t see why he couldn’t charm a third—”
“He’s too cheesy for me.”
Mark nods. “Yeah, same.”
A tired pause makes itself known, and Donghyuck suddenly feels the events of the day sink into his bones, his tissue, his muscles. Frankly, although he’d love to ask Mark to be his boyfriend right now and kiss him like he deserves, he doesn’t think either of them have the energy for it. So he puts it off for tomorrow, for a better, brighter day where he could nag at his best friend to make breakfast just so he can write his love on a post-it note and sign it with a drawing of a ladybug.
“Well! So now that we have established that neither of us would date our friends and indeed want to date each other, what do you say we go to sleep? It’s like—” He peeks over Mark’s shoulder and checks the time on his bedside alarm clock before snuggling back into the blankets. “It’s almost four AM, and we forgot to close the blinds again.”
Mark groans. “Shit, it’s so late—early.” He corrects. “I’ll do it later.” Sighing quietly, he settles himself into the blankets like Donghyuck did, shoulder to shoulder once more.
Silence ensues, and Donghyuck’s on verge of falling sleep once more, eyes dropping shut slowly when Mark murmurs to him, gently knocking the back of his hand with familiar knuckles.
“Can I hold your hand?”
Instead of responding, Donghyuck slips his fingers into the spaces meant for him, tightening his grip a bit when Mark’s thumb runs over his knuckles.
“Goodnight,” Mark whispers to him.
“If you don’t shut up and go to sleep right now, I’m murdering you,” He whispers back.
Mark laughs, but true to his word he falls silent once more.
For a whole, whopping, truly impressive three minutes.
“Y’know, I just realized this but your room is missing something.”
Donghyuck grunts loudly in annoyance, but indulges the older boy anyway. “…What?”
“You should have some stars too.”
He’s sleepy enough to not filter his thoughts properly, turns to nuzzle into Mark’s shoulder. “I have you, though?”
“Oh.” Something presses to his temple, and he vaguely makes sense of a pair of lips and a chin. “Goodnight, then.”
“Goodnight, Minhyung.”
“…Can we go buy the star stickers tomorrow?”
Donghyuck snorts, tightening his grip on his best friend’s hand. “You’re driving.”
The lips on his temple curl into a soft smile that Donghyuck doesn’t need to see in order to visualize. His heart rate slows, and he can’t help but feel at home, with his nose pressed in the familiar scent of Mark’s body wash, and his legs entwined with the familiar legs of his Minhyung.
And on a whim, he says goodnight to the moon and the stars, as they shine through his window, fighting valiantly against the light of an early morning to come.